A few things here. I don't think it's an issue of new scoreboard vs investment on payroll. The scoreboard is virtually its own business. Enhanced ad revenue should more than pay for a new board. I remember reading that the lower panel, currently showing the Vienna Beef sign had to be discounted after the Fan Deck blocked the view of it from good stretches of the lower bowl. Raising the board, incorporating the fixed panels into the active screen and retooling or eliminating the old black and white left field board should allow lots of new ad revenue. The only question that's out there is can they sell it.

I also don't think it's a matter of why bother, we're out of this park in ten years, since that's about the life span of these boards anyway. I do think we are about ten years away from talk of a new park, again looking at the average lifespan of ballparks. We are already the 9th oldest or so. The State may not give a darn about what to do with the old park. It will be paid for by then. They don't get any rent from it. ( That token $1.5 million is nonsense when you look at the mandatory maintenance dollars they have to pony up annually.) The tax revenue that was set up to pay for it is scheduled to be siphoned off to pay the debt service of the Soldier Field renovation. Tough to predict what will happen ten years from now, but expect models of the new Las Vegas, or Charlotte, or Portland White Sox stadium to be trotted out.

Unless the cable tv model changes dramatically in the next ten years, I don't think the Sox are a serious threat to leave the Chicago market. With these new tv deals, these teams in large markets are making more money from tv than attendance.

Therefore, I think it's much more likely we'll be seeing models of the Schaumburg, Rosemont, or Tinley Park White Sox stadiums than the Vegas, Charlotte or Portland